Google v. Belgium “link war” ends after years of conflict

Google has put Belgian newspapers back on its main search index following …

The dust has settled on the latest skirmish between Google and the gaggle of Belgian French/German language newspapers represented by the Copiepresse newspaper trade association. "LaLibre.be returns to Google," one of its flagship newspapers reported on Monday. That is to say, the disappearance of Copiepresse publications from all Google search venues, first noticed on Friday, has been fixed.

Google acknowledged this restoration in a statement sent to us.

"We are delighted that Copiepresse has given us assurances that we can re-include their sites in our Google search index without court-ordered penalties," Google Communications Manager Jeannie Hornung explained. "We never wanted to take their sites out of our index, but we needed to respect a court order until Copiepresse acted. We remain open to working in collaboration with Copiepresse members in the future."

A May 5 appeals court order upheld Belgium's right to restrict Google's search activities in that country, and it led to Google pulling the newspapers from its search index. But the blogosphere is left scratching its head at this five-year old legal battle, which began with Copiepresse newspapers and Belgian journalist groups demanding that their articles not appear on Google News and its cached remnants.

Whatever you think of this request, the feud pushes into sharp relief the ongoing stalemate between nations seeking to control cyberspace within their national borders and huge Internet companies like Google that want to standardize the rules of digital engagement across the global board.

Meet the King

On September 5, 2006, Google's Mountain View, California headquarters received a "Prohibitory Injunction" from the Court of First Instance of Belgium.

"WE, ALBERT II, KING OF THE BELGIANS, MAKE KNOWN TO ALL PRESENT AND FUTURE," it read, "that the Court of First Instance sitting in Brussels has pronounced the decision of which the text follows:"

The Injunction noted that Copiepresse had, on the basis of copyright infringement concerns, asked the court to order Google to withdraw all the articles, photographs, and graphics of its Belgian publications from the Google News site, "under penalty of a daily fine of €2,000,000 per day of delay."

To evaluate the appropriateness of the complaint, the president of the court had submitted to an expert the problem of Google indexing Copiepresse articles on Google news. From his testimony, the court had determined that "the way in which Google News presently operates causes the publishers of the daily press to lose control of their Web sites and their contents."

The service also "circumvents the advertising of the publishers who get a a considerable amount of their revenue from these advertisements," the court document explained. And the use of Google News "short-circuits many other elements such as reference to the publisher, reference to protection of copyright, and reference to the authorization or not of the use of the data," it concluded.

On the basis of these findings, the court found the Copiepresse claim admissible and ordered Google to withdraw the outlined content "from all their sites (Google News and 'cache' Google or any other name within 10 days of the notification of the intervening order, under penalty of a daily fine of €1,000,000 per day of delay." [We couldn't find the end parenthesis to this sentence, either.]

But wait a minute

As you can see from that last quote, there's a bit of ambiguity in the injunction. First it says "from all their sites." Then it parenthetically stipulates "Google News and 'cache' Google or any other name."

Google announced that the company would appeal the verdict, the search engine giant's European Director of Communication Rachel Whetstone disclosed on the Google Blog. But the firm also read the court order from the beginning of the line.

"In September a court ruled in favor of Copiepresse and ordered us to remove these publishers' content from both Google.be and Google News," Whetstone explained [our italics]. "We did this within the time specified."

According to Copiepresse newspaper La Libre Belgique, this caused an unanticipated result (warning—Google translation ahead). Google chose to comply with the order, but "in retaliation, was also stopped for several months to no longer reference the sites of these newspapers on its main search engine, thus depriving them of a share of traffic," a Friday summary of the conflict's early history disclosed.

But by May 2007, "Google had nevertheless agreed to reference again the newspaper sites," the article added, "while running in parallel a long legal battle."

Irrelevant judgments

The long legal battle did not go well for the company. Google lost yet again in a higher Belgian court, as it noted on its blog in early September of that year.

This judgment is clearly disappointing, and we intend to appeal it because we believe that Google.be and Google News are entirely legal and provide great value and critical information to Internet users. However, we are very pleased that the judge agreed Google should be given notice of articles and other material that content owners want removed. As we have in the past, we will honor all requests to remove such materials.

It is important to remember that both Google Web Search and Google News only ever show a few snippets of text. If people want to read the entire story they have to click through to the Web publisher's site where the information resides.

But it appears that one of the reasons that Google continued to come up short was because it adopted something like the same legal strategy that Yahoo had embraced when ordered by a French court in April of 2000 to stop selling Nazi memorabilia on its auction websites. France "wants to impose a judgment in an area over which it has no control," Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang declared at the time—that area being the United States, land of the First Amendment.

France's courts were not impressed with this argument. Belgium's courts weren't, either.

"Google maintains that American law should prevail on the grounds that it is in the United States that it inserted, on its servers, the pages published on the Belgian websites of the Belgian newspaper editors," the latest decision from Belgium's appeals court observed:

Assuming that the physical location where the pages published by the members of Copiepresse would have been inserted in the Google search engine would be relevant to determine which law is applicable, it should first of all be established that Google does not produce a single document which corroborates that this takes place in the United States.

It is therefore likely that it intervenes in several countries in the world.

The opinion then quoted the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary Artistic Works of September 9, 1886: "Authors shall enjoy, in respect of works for which they are protected under this Convention, in countries of the Union other than the country of origin, the rights which their respective laws do now or may hereafter grant to their nationals, as well as the rights specially granted by this Convention."

According to the ruling, Google interpreted the Berne Convention to say that "the law of the country where protection is sought is not that of the country where the harm was sustained but that of the country or the territory in which the offences took place, in this case the United States."

"This judgment is irrelevant," the court opined, and "does not apply to the facts of the case," contending that other sections of Berne more aptly applied.

It's brutal

The court also rebuked arguments that it is users who copy content when they access a "cached" news item. And the judicial body nixed Google's contention that its news service only provides a hyperlink to and a quick snippet of a given news story: "'Google News' does not confine itself to placing hyperlinks but reproduces significant sections of the publisher's articles," said the court.

After all of the appeals and technical processes were played out earlier this summer, the court issued a bottom line ultimatum ordering Google to:

remove from the Google.be and Google.com sites, more specifically from the 'cached' links on "Google Web" and from the "Google News" service, all the articles, photographs and graphic representations from the Belgian publishers of the French and German-speaking daily newspapers, represented by Copiepresse, and from the authors in respect of whom [several associations] can prove to have been legally authorized, under penalty of a fine for non-performance of € 25,000.00 per day of delay, save in respect of the daily newspaper L'Echo in terms of the "Google News" service only.

So Google removed the papers from its search and news indices. Given this judgment, it is rather odd that these newspapers, which fought so hard to restrain Google, are now clamoring for re-inclusion in its search indexes (but not Google News) following Google's second Belgian shutdown. "Attitude brutale de Google," runs another La Libre headline. "It was not necessary to unlink [the paper] so brutally," the writer laments.

Their behavior illustrates the can't-live-with-can't-live-without attitude towards Google that is spreading around the world. While the masses clamor for Google's free cloud powered services, national political/cultural classes bristle at what they see as a kind of vast digital vacuum cleaner—raking up millions of advertising dollars off their cultures and integrating them into a global mix that often looks like Mountain View's manicured lawns.

France has gone so far as to ponder Le Taxe Google—a tithe on the company and Facebook to support French broadband networks.

"Some well-known services, like Google or Facebook, are ever-growing," French Digital Economy Minister Eric Besson complained to parliament five months ago, "without contributing in any way to finance infrastructure or creation." Even worse, these companies come from "foreign countries" he added, pay no taxes in France, and enjoy near monopoly status on the French market. "This situation is unprecedented in the history of our economy," Besson warned.

We contacted several Copiepresse newspapers to get a sense of their hoped-for future with Google, but have yet to receive a reply.

78 Reader Comments

I am in awe of the staggering ignorance of some people. How much Belgian time and money has been wasted for them to realize that yes, they actually do want Google to link to their sites? It shows a profound lack of understanding of what the internet is and how it works. That was acceptable a decade ago, but in 2011 politicians and especially the media should know better. Everyone with useful and authoritative websites benefit from showing up on as many Google sites as possible.

French Digital Economy Minister Eric Besson complained to parliament five months ago, "without contributing in any way to finance infrastructure or creation." Even worse, these companies come from "foreign countries" he added, pay no taxes in France, and enjoy near monopoly status on the French market. "This situation is unprecedented in the history of our economy," Besson warned.

Maybe a better solution would be for them to block Google's and other foreign free services like search, documents, etc. This way French citizens would be forced to use and/or purchase home grown products! That should be a great stimulus to their economy and make them more competitive!

Just to make things right, the two main languages which are spoken in Belgium are french and dutch (although german is also spoken but by less than 1% of the population). Many people confuse Dutch (spoken in Belgium and in the Netherlands) with Deutsch (German).

"Some well-known services, like Google or Facebook, are ever-growing," French Digital Economy Minister Eric Besson complained to parliament five months ago, "without contributing in any way to finance infrastructure or creation." Even worse, these companies come from "foreign countries" he added, pay no taxes in France, and enjoy near monopoly status on the French market. "This situation is unprecedented in the history of our economy," Besson warned.

So according to politicians, if their citizens are using something, there better be a way the government can profit off of it. I'm baffled at the issue they are conjuring out of thin air: citizens are using products from another country, and the country of France is in no way benefiting from this, so there must be a problem! How about all the monthly fees paid to French ISPs for accessing said services? Bloody pillocks.

"Some well-known services, like Google or Facebook, are ever-growing," French Digital Economy Minister Eric Besson complained to parliament five months ago, "without contributing in any way to finance infrastructure or creation." Even worse, these companies come from "foreign countries" he added, pay no taxes in France, and enjoy near monopoly status on the French market. "This situation is unprecedented in the history of our economy," Besson warned.

So according to politicians, if their citizens are using something, there better be a way the government can profit off of it. I'm baffled at the issue they are conjuring out of thin air: citizens are using products from another country, and the country of France is in no way benefiting from this, so there must be a problem! How about all the monthly fees paid to French ISPs for accessing said services? Bloody pillocks.

you beat me to it...

Keep in mind, European users are taxed pretty heavily, and I'm sure their governments would only tap their populace as a last resort...

"Some well-known services, like Google or Facebook, are ever-growing," French Digital Economy Minister Eric Besson complained to parliament five months ago, "without contributing in any way to finance infrastructure or creation." Even worse, these companies come from "foreign countries" he added, pay no taxes in France, and enjoy near monopoly status on the French market.

Well, innovate you fucking snail eating idiot.Give the people something better and they will go to it, the fact that they are going to these services is because its the best (in their eyes).You cant put something better out there, so you want to tax the people who put it there without you doing a single thing to earn that money.

Somehow in my head I see politicians standing up on their collective soapboxes and shouting "I'm not sure what the F&#% is going on here, but by god we're going to do something about it. It might not be productive, intuitive, fathomable, or otherwise make sense what so ever, but I'm willing to shoot myself in the foot to justify this outrage, whatever the hell it is".

I don't think it's that confusing. The google news service is significantly different than the main search site. On the main search site, the included text from the articles tends to be shorter than on news (for the same article) so more often requires you to click on the link than does the news feed. Also, the news page does a pretty good job of aggregating stories by their currency, just like the front page of a newspaper. You can go to google news in your country, and get a semblance of what a newspaper site would put on their front page, only with google's ads/revenue surrounding it, rather than what the newspapers would get revenue for.

That being said, I'm in favour of google's position. I don't think they're showing enough of the article to violate, at least my sense of fair use/fair dealing or whatever you want to call it. I think that including articles in google news is liable to get more people to drill through to the whole article than would otherwise see the article.

But the point is that the main google search and the google news service are significantly different, and I can imagine wanting (desperately) to be included in the main search but being opposed to seeing the same articles in the google news feed.

So according to politicians, if their citizens are using something, there better be a way the government can profit off of it. I'm baffled at the issue they are conjuring out of thin air: citizens are using products from another country, and the country of France is in no way benefiting from this, so there must be a problem! How about all the monthly fees paid to French ISPs for accessing said services? Bloody pillocks.

It is the French after all, I wouldn't expect anything less. Chances are it's just bluster, but if they do manage to enact some kind of ridiculous Google tax, Google can just pull out of France and wait for the riots. That seems to be how politics get done there.

A Belgian court orders Google to quit linking to Belgian newspaper chain Copiepresse.Google fights this in court.Google loses.Google severs all links to Belgium's Copiepresse.Copiepresse whines about how Google is a big meanie.

As for Google in France, if France tries to tax Google, then kill-switch all of France. Simple and straightforward. Then let France start their own Google-clone. Of course, Le Clone can't complain if it accesses web pages outside France and those pages' host countries then tax Le Clone, right?

Does royal status make one schizophrenic? What's with the "WE, ALBERT II"? Did Albert II eat Albert I and now he's speaking for both?

It's called the royal plural. I believe it's used because the king *is* the country. (He speaks for them all.) At least that's the impression I got from Hamlet (where king and country are used interchangably).

"Some well-known services, like Google or Facebook, are ever-growing," French Digital Economy Minister Eric Besson complained to parliament five months ago, "without contributing in any way to finance infrastructure or creation." Even worse, these companies come from "foreign countries" he added, pay no taxes in France, and enjoy near monopoly status on the French market. "This situation is unprecedented in the history of our economy," Besson warned.

No, it is no different. At least, not if you believe in free trade. Because this is the fundamental point of tariff-free trade.

Google provides goods (a service), which your citizens buy (from their ISP), which you DO tax. Google links to newspapers which show ads from advertising companies you DO tax. If you are afraid of users going out and buying imported goods (trade deficit), create something of value online, so that users come to you (exporting), or your own users don't buy the imported goods (local value).

This is NO different from trade, we've just made it far easier for goods to get from one place to another, and made knowledge and information a good. This is free trade, and unprecedented my foot, it was "invented" in the 16th century.

(and for the record, the same sort of thing makes me mad here in the states too, when they start talking about taxing Netflix. The end user paid for that. You sold them that service, and now you complain about them using it?)

So imagine you have two countries that share a border. Suppose you have a company that decides to build a toll road that goes right up to the border of the neighbor country. You advertise your toll road, "Only $1 to drive on my toll road! What a deal!" So I come up to you and ask where I can go on your toll road and you say "Oh, to the border of the country and back, but it's only $1! What a deal!"

This is where I look at you funny and go my merry way. Now suppose some clever individual in the neighboring country thinks "Hey, I have a really cool idea for a shop. I shall build my really cool shop and also build a road that connects to the toll road so that people from that country may come to my shop and purchase things." Additionally, this clever individual thinks to themselves, I shall not charge a toll on my road because I want people to be able to come to my shop and purchase things.

So now there is someplace to go on the toll road and people begin driving on the toll road. Further, they discover that my really cool shop is in fact really cool, and so they tell their friends about my really cool shop and they also come to my shop and purchase things and they tell their friends and so on.

Now we have some other clever individuals who think, "Hey, there are a lot of people visiting this really cool shop, perhaps we should build different really cool shops so that when people are visiting they might purchase things from us as well". And so they do.

Suddenly we have a whole lot of people driving on that toll road. Now you would think that the toll road operators would be thrilled at this. Their previously useless toll road is now heavily used and they are making a lot of money off of tolls. But the toll road is starting to get jammed. The logical thing to do at this point would be to use some of that toll money to make the toll road bigger so that more people can drive on it so that they can make even more money off of tolls. But no, instead they complain to their government that those dirty shops on the neighboring country aren't paying their fair share. They're making use of our toll road but they don't have a to pay a dime to support it.

So the government dutifully calls up the shops and says "Hi, we're going to tax you because you're making use of our toll road but you aren't paying to support it."

The shops of course are understandably confused. "But we aren't in your country, you have no authority to tax us."

"Doesn't matter, you're using our roads, we're going to tax you."

"But it's not us using the roads, it's our customers, who are your people, and they already pay a toll to use the road."

"Doesn't matter, the roads are stressed and you are enriching yourselves without paying your share."

"But if we weren't here then there wouldn't be anybody using those roads and you wouldn't be making any money from tolls"

"Doesn't matter, if you want to do business with our people we get to tax you."

So now the shops are at an impasse. They know that the neighboring gov doesn't actually have any authority to do this, but they don't want annoy their customers either by having to turn them away because of their government.

And this my friends is what these stupid governments are trying to do to Google and the internet. We know it's stupid, Google knows it's stupid, their people know it's stupid, but these governments are apparently immune to logic.

Belgian papers are in their right and Google act like monopolistic assholes.

Being referenced in search results is one thing; having significant portions of own copyrighted material displayed without authorization on Google News is quite another. Saying that they are the same is hypocritical bullshit.

There are plenty of smart, culturally sophisticated European entrepreneurs capable of building a competing product. Be it against Google, Facebook, or Apple. The only question is will their elected leaders stop playing political favorites long enough to let their own people compete. Until this happens foreign properties are going to continue captivating their citizens.

You know, the more I read of politics, the more I dislike politicians. I feel that a glove should be crafted like a plated gauntlet, but with heavy-duty springs under each plate. It should be constructed in a way that, upon impact, said springs unlatch and propelling the plates from the glove. This glove should be utilized in instances when stupidity, such as Eric Besson's proclamation, is spoken by representative figures.

More on topic: I find the use of the word "monopoly" to be in the same class as the use of the words "terrorist," "digital theft," and "intellectual property."

I feel that we've strayed far from intended meanings and it seems there's no looking back.

I don't understand why people keep using the term monopolistic to describe Google. There are a plethora of other search, document, news aggregation, email, etc sites on the intertubes.

Yeah you don't understand.It doesn't mean google is the one and only entity offering those services.

Are we redefining words?

Was MS the only company providing operating systems or web browsers?.

No, but they controlled 95% of the market, which is more than Google, and they used their position to hurt competition. Google drives many of the open standards that OTHER competing companies use because Google *mostly* makes products that are open and anyone can use or interface with.

Google is about as perfect as a company as I could humanly hope for. Very little marketing and does much much more good than harm. They aren't perfect and they have made mistakes, but for the most part, they've fixed issues.

If I was ever to trust a company, it's a company ran by engineers. 3DFX and Aureal were also both ran by engineers. They both had higher quality than the competition, they had cheaper prices, and they both had a customer-centric vision.

Being that most companies are ran by marketing and sales, Google is a prized gem. I shall fully enjoy them as long as they stay this way.

Belgian papers are in their right and Google act like monopolistic assholes.

Being referenced in search results is one thing; having significant portions of own copyrighted material displayed without authorization on Google News is quite another. Saying that they are the same is hypocritical bullshit.

Define significant. When I go out to news.google.com, I see no article with more than one sentence in length. One sentence!

Microsoft OS's came pre-installed on PCs. The browser was pre-installed in the OS.

These were things that people didn't have a choice on when they bought their systems, if they wanted a PC. Google is a choice people make. I know for a fact that if you install Windows, Google is not included with the OS. Neither is it the de facto search engine in even its own browser (you get prompted upon install to choose your engine).

Google is a choice people make, very hard to be a monopoly when you are simply one choice out of many. They just happen to do what they do very well, so people consistently choose them.

Matthew Lasar / Matt writes for Ars Technica about media/technology history, intellectual property, the FCC, or the Internet in general. He teaches United States history and politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz.